Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Estes Park

On Saturday, Kyle and I went up to Estes Park. We had originally thought we’d do a picnic for lunch on
Saturday, but a drive up to Estes Park, some walking around the shops, a nice visit to the Stanley Hotel and a nice dinner out sounded a bit more interesting for both of us. Not that picnics aren’t great, of course.

We left town around 2pm. We tried to leave earlier, but got side tracked with homemade quesadillas, iPod transmitters and a car wash. It wasn’t a problem though - we had just enough time up there to do what we wanted.

I’ve heard people talk about going up to Estes Park and walking around the shops my whole life. I’d never gone myself, but figured this would be a great opportunity to see what all the hype was about. I still haven’t seen it though. The scenery is gorgeous, but the shops left a lot to be desired. I mean, how many souvenir t-shirts and how much turquoise jewelry can one person look at in a single day, anyway? I think I may have seen enough for the rest of my life, actually. Hiking and a picnic may have been a better way to spend our time, but at least now we know that for next time.

The Stanley Hotel is the hotel Stephen King based The Overlook on in The Shining. It’s on the national register for historical landmarks (or is it historical hotels?) for other reasons, but I think most people go there because of the horror aspect. While we were there there was a rather large group of “ghost hunters” which were kind of annoying. I mean, really. You don’t need to walk around the place with your video camera at three in the afternoon trying to catch an apparition when there are people everywhere. If ghosts didn’t make themselves scarce when large groups of people were milling about you wouldn’t need to try to catch one on video.

You can’t go upstairs and walk around the hallways without a room, so next time we’d like to get one. There’s also a tour that we didn’t know about ahead of time that we would like to sign up for next time we go up there. Next time, we will not eat dinner at the Cascades Restaurant on the main floor of The Stanley, however. For all it’s impressiveness outside, the dinner menu was lacking. I’m sure it’s a great place for snacks and drinks, but not a dinner meal.


The Stanley Hotel


Kyle on the shore of Lake Estes with The Stanley in the background.


Still on the shore of Lake Estes, facing into the sun this time. We were laughing pretty hard because it was so bright and neither of us knew when the automatic timer on the camera would go off exactly. He keeps his cool much better than I do, evidently.

1 comment:

Ky said...

I really like that last picture of us. I love when you laugh.